Abstract

World attention was drawn to the scale of the global fisheries crisis and also the extent of fishery subsidies in 1992 with the publication of an FAO report, Marine Fisheries and the Law of the Sea: A Decade of Change. This report highlighted two main causes of the crisis: first many fisheries were not managed and were open access fisheries, and second ‘the annual operating costs greater than total revenues, with no account being taken of capital costs’ (as cited by Schrank 2003), i.e. marine fisheries were heavily subsidized, eliminating the market signals of over-fishing. Subsequently a number of reports have attempted to clarify what constitutes a subsidy and to estimate their magnitude. This debate has focused largely on developed country fisheries and fishing fleets and there is limited information on developing countries or at the micro level. Debates at the policy level have included submissions to the World Trade Organisation to investigate the trade status of fisheries subsidies and in the words of the US delegation to the WTO to take steps ‘toward the development of clarified and improved disciplines’ (WTO 2003). There are also on-going discussions in the FAO.